


come with the dust

by damerons (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: Agora (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen Reader, Other, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29802315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/damerons
Summary: At a Halloween party full of punny costumes and pop culture references, this man is clad in ancient Roman garb.[AU where people age until they reach 18 and then stop aging until they meet their soulmate so they can grow old together.]
Relationships: Orestes (Agora)/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	come with the dust

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Oscar Isaac Week 2021 on tumblr; prompt: AU day

History nerd.

You spot the guy from across the party and immediately understand that this is the “roommate’s history nerd classmate” that your best friend was describing to you. Because at a Halloween party full of punny costumes and pop culture references, this man is clad in ancient Roman garb.

Normally, the folks in this circle will go for the bare minimum: a bedsheet (of _any_ color or pattern), some cheap plastic laurels on their head, their rattiest pair of sandals. What this guy is wearing… it must have been a serious commitment.

And you are immediately endeared.

Enough so that you cross the room to greet him. “Are you Mercury?”

The man raises his eyebrows and gives you a hint of a smile. “You’re the first person all night who hasn’t guessed a Greek name.”

“What, when you’re wearing that?” You scoff before taking on a very straight face. “Yeah, I absolutely believe it.”

“I’m Orestes.”

When a frown spreads across your face, you can’t help it. “Not from the plays.” From the very _Greek_ plays.

“No, not from the plays.” He smiles wider. “He was the prefect of Alexandria around the time Hypatia was alive.”

You can’t help chuckling. “That’s archaic.”

A shrug. “I’m pretty archaic.”

You tell him that you’re going to keep calling him Orestes, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

More and more, he is at the apartment at the same time as you, which your best friend points out with some amusement. And you don’t mind.

One of the first times you see him again, he has a million questions for you about your degree. What drew you to history? Why late antiquity?

This is the first time you talk with him about soulmates.

“It was my grandfather. He was born during the Revolutionary War, and he just… he had really strong feelings about the relationship we should have with the past. I guess he passed them on to me pretty young.”

“Yeah?” Orestes’ voice is quiet, his gaze thoughtful as he watches you. “What did he think?”

Looking down at your lap, you remember the way he held you while you pored over books on the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages and the Civil War. The words he whispered against the crown of your head over and over. “The past is something that we can remember fondly, but we should never let our feelings about it stop us from seeing the things it has to teach us. The things worth changing.”

For a flash, his features betray a deep sadness, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. “That’s really beautiful.” After a careful pause, he asks, “So I’m… guessing he didn’t find his soulmate for a while, then.”

You understand Orestes’ hesitance. _Asking_ about soulmates is a messy business. You never know when you’ll encounter someone who hasn’t aged in decades, or longer, and the general attitude is that it’s best to _not ask_ rather than accidentally make them self-conscious.

Instead, it is information that people offer up only if they feel so inclined. And there is no expectation of reciprocity.

“About 150 years,” you tell him softly. “My parents actually aren’t soulmates, but they were best friends growing up and they fell in love and they just… decided to be partners. My grandpa wasn’t like that. He was a total romantic, he’d show me all these stories… you know the kind, people waiting centuries for their true match and deciding that they didn’t want to settle down with anyone else and risk keeping _them_ from their soulmates.”

He nods. “I do, yeah.” Again, there is something peculiar in his expression, and you’re curious… so curious. But you don’t ask.

“That was why I landed on late antiquity, I think. One of those stories just burrowed into my brain and wouldn’t let go. I think it was a governor, maybe? Your costume made me think of him for the first time in a while, actually. He was apparently around at least through the Middle Ages. When I was little I always liked to imagine him finding his person and finally being able to breathe.”

Another slow nod. “I’m sure he did.”

Orestes kisses you at a party late one night (or early one morning), the taste of beer on his tongue and loud music pulsing through you.

When he pulls away, his first word is, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” you murmur. Grabbing for his hips to pull him closer again.

“No, it’s--” A soft groan into your mouth as you hover your lips over his. “I like you a lot.”

You smile. “I don’t see the problem.”

His protest is weak when you tilt your head and move to kiss his neck. “We’ll-- Sad. It’s going to end sad.”

“Plenty of things end sad.”

Maybe he’s skeptical, but when you kiss him again, he falls into it anyway.

“I’m old.” He whispers it, his arms wrapped around you and his mouth at your ear. There is every possibility that he thinks – or hopes – that you are asleep. But you clutch him a bit closer where your hand rests over his, and you feel his body soften behind you.

 _How old?_ you want to ask. But instead, you say something true. “I know.”

He tells you more in bits and pieces.

Never everything, never the most basic information ( _where and when was he born_ ), but he tells you about old jobs, and things he misses from a less modern world. You’re watching a movie about World War 2 and he tells you that he was in London during the Blitz.

“Why are you back in school?” you ask him after he gripes about the complicated developments in the field of physics since he last took a class.

Orestes’ brow furrows. “So much has changed since last time. Why wouldn’t I want to keep learning?”

You think you love him.

It’s a year after you first met, when he pulls on another absurdly archaic Halloween costume, that you begin to put the pieces together.

He’s dressed as a playwright from Spain – people keep guessing that he’s Shakespeare – and something about the name rings a bell. You look him up and discover that there were accounts that the man had been alive for over a century before his plays took the country by storm. He was known for writing deeply tragic, remorseful works, and the few scholars who study him are not at all shy about connecting his preoccupation with misery to his lack of a soulmate.

Just like that governor from ancient Rome. Another one of those stories your grandfather loved, because there was real, lingering evidence that it was true.

You look him up too, then—the governor.

Turns out you’d misremembered. It was a prefect from around the time the Western Roman Empire fell.

He comes home while you’re reading up on him—reading up on Orestes. He calls your name from the other room, asking whether you want to get take-out for dinner. But you look up at him when he appears in the doorway, and you see in his eyes that he knows it’s clicked.

“Your costumes… were those just _you_?”

Nervously – bashfully – he nods. After a very long pause. “Sometimes, you just… need to have a joke with yourself.”

From the way he’s watching you, there is no doubt in your mind that he’s terrified of what you will say next, and you don’t suppose you can blame him. He’s literally admitted to you that he’s been around for… what feels to _you_ like an eternity. You can’t even _imagine_ what it feels like to him.

Can’t even imagine what _you_ feel like to him. The smallest splinter in an endless life.

Rising to your feet, you cross the room. You reach up your hand and smooth your fingers tenderly over his cheek, his jaw. Tenderly, you murmur, “No wonder you like it when I call you Orestes.”

His eyes fall shut. Lovely—he looks so lovely. So at ease and _oh_ do you love him. “Made me feel like you see me.”

“I do.” The words are little more than a breath across his cheek before he’s kissing you.

You barely argue, and never about anything big, but the evening after you introduce him to your parents, he crumbles.

“Do you really want that with me? To not grow old together?”

And you know Orestes quite well, by now. You know that he’s asking you whether you want it because it’s easier than admitting that he does. But it seems that he’s just as terrified of you saying _yes_.

You say it anyway. Over and over while he tries to give you a million reasons why you should be out there searching for your _actual_ match.

“Who’s to say that’s not you?” you fire back. “Neither of us have been to the doctor or gotten any bloodwork done since we met. Maybe we’ve been getting older this whole time.”

Orestes looks at you like he’s in pain. “I want that to be true, love, but I…” But his belief that he even _has_ a soulmate faltered centuries ago.

“Let’s see, then.” Your voice shakes as you offer up the suggestion. “If we’re… if we’re not…” Swallowing hesitantly. You can’t even voice the _possibility_ that you are not the one he’s been waiting for this whole time. How could you? How bold is it of you to imagine that he’s waited millennia for _you_? “I’ll listen to you, if we’re not.”

The nurse looks at you with pity as he draws your blood. You can’t blame him—you’ve never been in this position before, but you know plenty of couples do it. For many, _if we’re not soulmates_ is the most tragic sort of ultimatum. And now for you, too.

Orestes’ results come back first, and the nurse has barely managed to say, “Congratulations,” before Orestes – your favorite person, who’s been through more than he could tell you about in a lifetime – begins to weep.


End file.
